Building The Colosseum: The Icon of Rome

When you think Rome, you think the Colos­se­um. It’s one of the great struc­tures of the Roman Empire, and it still dom­i­nates the land­scape of the mod­ern city. But how deep does your knowl­edge of the Colos­se­um actu­al­ly go? Which emper­or built the Amphithe­atrum Flav­i­um (as it was orig­i­nal­ly called)? For what pur­pose? And how, styl­is­ti­cal­ly, was it orig­i­nal­ly built and dec­o­rat­ed? All of this gets answered in an image-packed lec­ture by Yale pro­fes­sor Diana E.E. Klein­er, which forms part of her larg­er course on Roman Archi­tec­ture. (Find it on YouTubeiTunes and Yale’s Open Course web site). I queued up the lec­ture at the 20 minute, when Klein­er starts talk­ing about the Colos­se­um itself. But you can move back to the very begin­ning if you want to get some more polit­i­cal con­text.

Final­ly, let me men­tion that Google also lets you revis­it Ancient Rome. Google Earth offers a nice 3D view of the Colos­se­um and oth­er impor­tant Roman mon­u­ments, while Google Street View you tour the ancient ruins of Pom­peii. It’s all free, of course.

Please vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es to learn more about his­to­ry, lit­er­a­ture, phi­los­o­phy or what­ev­er else piques your inter­est. You’ll find a good 250 free cours­es in the col­lec­tion.

Open Meets New Meets Old Publishing

YOUNG JUNIUSOC con­trib­u­tor Seth Har­wood has some­thing excit­ing going on over at his site today: he’s launch­ing the pre-order sales of his new nov­el YOUNG JUNIUS, which is due out this fall. This is part­ly worth not­ing because Seth’s path to pub­li­ca­tion involves giv­ing away his work for free as MP3 audio­books. You can even lis­ten to all of YOUNG JUNIUS before you make a buy. If you’re a fan of crime or mys­tery fic­tion, or you dig The Wire, you’ll love this book!

Now, Seth is part­ner­ing with inde­pen­dent pub­lish­er Tyrus Books to break new ground in pub­lish­ing strate­gies. To read the full descrip­tion of what he’s up to, go here. The brief ver­sion involves the pre-order of spe­cial, lim­it­ed edi­tion copies of the book that fea­ture cloth bind­ing, fan-cre­at­ed cov­er art, pho­tos of the sto­ry’s loca­tions, signed per­son­al­iza­tion and more. By offer­ing these for a lim­it­ed time via his site, he and Tyrus are able to print just the quan­ti­ty sold and bal­ance some of the cost (reduce the risk) of the book’s full print run–hardcover, paper­back AND spe­cial edi­tion.

If you’d like to read more about this or order a copy, head over to sethharwood.com. When you do, use the code OC to save $3 off the cov­er price of the book! Enjoy!!

Seth Har­wood is a vora­cious read­er, sub­ver­sive pub­lish­ing maven and crime nov­el­ist.

Bill Murray Reads Poetry at a Construction Site: Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins & More

Anoth­er great New York City moment. In the spring of 2009, con­struc­tion work­ers build­ing the new home for Poets House were treat­ed to a short poet­ry read­ing by the actor Bill Mur­ray. We ini­tial­ly encounter Mur­ray (at the 59 sec­ond mark) read­ing lines from Bil­ly Collins’ Anoth­er Rea­son I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House. Next up? Lorine Niedeck­er’s very pithy poem, Poets Work, and then, of course, a lit­tle Emi­ly Dick­in­son.

For more free poet­ry, vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­­sion­al­­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Gives a Delight­ful Read­ing of Twain’sHuckleberry Finn (1996)

The Phi­los­o­phy of Bill Mur­ray: The Intel­lec­tu­al Foun­da­tions of His Comedic Per­sona

Watch Bill Mur­ray Per­form a Satir­i­cal Anti-Tech­nol­o­gy Rant (1982)

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Alice In Openland

This year, Tim Bur­ton’s pro­duc­tion of Alice In Won­der­land was wel­comed by a flur­ry of media buzz and a rather polar­ized pub­lic response debat­ing whether the icon­ic direc­tor had butchered or rein­vent­ed the even more icon­ic chil­dren’s clas­sic. But dis­cus­sion of the film’s cre­ative mer­its aside, one thing it did do bril­liant­ly was rekin­dle the pub­lic’s inter­est in what’s eas­i­ly the most beloved work of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture of the past two cen­turies.

So beloved, in fact, that Lewis Car­rol­l’s 1865 nov­el has gen­er­at­ed hun­dreds of reprints, film adap­ta­tions and var­i­ous deriv­a­tive works over the years. Many of these works are now avail­able in the pub­lic domain — even a sim­ple search in the Inter­net Archive sends you down a rab­bit hole of adap­ta­tions and remakes, span­ning from land­mark ear­ly cin­e­ma trea­sures to off­beat prod­ucts of con­tem­po­rary dig­i­tal cul­ture.

Today, we’ve curat­ed a selec­tion of the most inter­est­ing and cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant — the “curi­ouser and curi­ouser,” if you will — free ver­sions of, trib­utes to, and deriv­a­tives of Alice’s Adven­tures In Won­der­land.

  • The fun­da­men­tals: A Project Guten­berg free dig­i­tal copy of Car­rol­l’s orig­i­nal Alice’s Adven­tures In Won­der­land text
  • A 1916 abridged ver­sion intend­ed for younger chil­dren, dig­i­tized by the Library of Con­gress, is avail­able from the Inter­na­tion­al Chil­dren’s Dig­i­tal Library and fea­tures some won­der­ful illus­tra­tion — though, regret­tably, it lacks the Cheshire Cat
  • For a clas­sic with a spin, try this audio ver­sion read by blog­ger extra­or­di­naire, Boing­Bo­ing co-edi­tor, Pop­u­lar Sci­ence colum­nist and vocal free con­tent advo­cate Cory Doc­torow
  • The ear­li­est cin­e­mat­ic adap­ta­tion of the book, direct­ed by Cecil Hep­worth in 1903, is a silent film gem, clock­ing in at just 8 min­utes and 19 sec­onds. Watch above.
  • In 1915, W. W. Young direct­ed the sec­ond Amer­i­can adap­ta­tion of Alice — a mas­sive six-reel pro­duc­tion that show­cased the rapid evo­lu­tion of film­mak­ing in just a decade since the first pro­duc­tion. Though much of the film is now lost, 42 min­utes of it can be seen at the Inter­net Archive for free
  • A 1966 British adap­ta­tion by direc­tor Jonathan Miller for the BBC fea­tures an ambi­tious cast — includ­ing Peter Sell­ers as the King of Hearts, Sir John Giel­guld as Mock Tur­tle, Michael Red­grave as The Cater­pil­lar and Peter Cook as the Mad Hat­ter — and its sound­track, scored by the leg­endary Ravi Shankar, exudes the bor­der­line folk-psy­che­delia sound of the Wood­stock era. The film, divid­ed into sev­en parts, is avail­able for free on YouTube.
  • This 2‑minute ver­sion of Alice In Won­der­land shot in the vir­tu­al world Sec­ond Life is an eerie tes­ta­ment to just how wide­ly Car­rol­l’s clas­sic res­onates.
  • Per­haps the biggest trea­sure of all, Lewis Car­rol­l’s orig­i­nal man­u­script, avail­able from the British Library — 91 pages of pre­cious lit­er­ary his­to­ry, with orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions from artist John Ten­niel. The online gallery also fea­tures a pref­ace telling the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of the Oxford math­e­mati­cian’s real-life inspi­ra­tion for the book and the fate of the real Alice

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of eclec­tic inter­est­ing­ness and indis­crim­i­nate curios­i­ty. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine and Huff­in­g­ton Post, and spends a dis­turb­ing amount of time curat­ing inter­est­ing­ness on Twit­ter.

The Best of Ken Loach on YouTube

Ken Loach is Britain’s most famous – and often con­tro­ver­sial – direc­tor, known for his social real­ist direct­ing style and social­ist pol­i­tics. Giv­en his approach, it’s quite fit­ting that he has made some of his finest films avail­able on YouTube – for free. The Ken Loach YouTube chan­nel gives you access to his ear­ly major films, includ­ing Cathy Come Home, a 1966 BBC docu­d­ra­ma that por­trays a young cou­ple grap­pling with pover­ty, unem­ploy­ment, and home­less­ness, and also Kes, a 1970 movie that’s now ranked sev­enth on the British Film Insti­tute’s list of the Top Ten (British) Films.

But you would­n’t want to miss Loach’s more recent films. And the new YouTube col­lec­tion does­n’t dis­ap­point. It fea­tures Hid­den Agen­da (1990), a polit­i­cal thriller that won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val; Riff Raff (1991), anoth­er prize win­ner that takes a hard look at the work­ing class in the UK; and Ae Fond Kiss (2004), which delves into what hap­pens when a young Pak­istani man enters into a rela­tion­ship with a Cau­casian woman in Glas­gow.

We’re adding the Loach YouTube chan­nel to our Smart YouTube col­lec­tion, and his indi­vid­ual films to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

A big thanks goes to Natal­ie in the UK for this great find. And be sure to check out her tea-lov­ing blog at afternoonteatotal.com.

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Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen

Filmed in 1986, Meetin’ WA is a short (26 minute) film that not many have seen. What you get is Godard, one of the dri­ving forces behind La Nou­velle Vague, in con­ver­sa­tion with Woody Allen. The trade­mark Godard approach to film, the expect­ed dose of Woody Allen neu­roses — they’re all there. You’ll find this gem and 340+ oth­er films (includ­ing many clas­sics) list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.